by Lucía Jalón Oyarzun

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“Here, chance has worked to magically reveal the symbol of Free France, the double-barred cross of Lorraine, at precisely the moment of the country’s liberation at the end of World War II. Adopted as a countersymbol to the Nazi swastika, the cross had been painted out, presumably during the German occupation of France. The symbolic meaning was perfectly evident to Brassaï, who captioned the photograph, “The political struggle on the wall. General de Gaulle’s Cross of Lorraine, covered over with black paint, begins to reemerge.” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art